Old scorebooks, part 10 — Future big-leaguers in ’94 final four

Between them, Scott Downs and Brad Wilkerson played major league baseball for more than 20 years, which tells you something about the star power they brought to the high school baseball final four in 1994.

Before the semifinals, PRP Coach Bill Miller and Apollo Coach Bob Mantooth had to decide when to use their aces.

Miller sent Downs to the mound for the Panthers in their semifinal matchup with Lexington Catholic, and he threw a three-hitter and struck out 15 as PRP beat Dom Fucci’s Knights 3-1. Downs improved to 13-0 on the season, with 175 K’s in 80 innings. (He finished his career 24-0.)

Brad Wilkerson

Mantooth tried to save Wilkerson, who had an 11-0 record and 0.71 ERA, for the finals. The strategy failed. Error-plagued Apollo lost to Corbin 5-4 in the semifinals. Wilkerson, who brought a .505 batting average into the game, had an RBI double for Apollo, but Corbin Coach Randall Sawyers limited Wilkerson’s opportunities by intentionally walking him twice.

In the championship game at Kentucky Wesleyan College, PRP rallied from an early 6-0 deficit to beat Corbin 10-8 for its first state title.

Downs and Wilkerson went on to have terrific college careers — Downs at Kentucky and Wilkerson at Florida.

Downs was a third-round draft choice of the Chicago Cubs in 1997. He played 14 years in the big leagues for seven teams. He came out of the bullpen most of his career and appeared in 619 games, worked 750 innings, struck out 575 and had a 3.56 ERA.

Wilkerson was a first-round draft choice of the Montreal Expos in 1998. He played 8 seasons as an outfielder in the majors for five teams. He appeared in 972 games, had 788 hits (.247 average), 500 runs and 122 home runs.

ABOUT MIKE FIELDS

After working as a sports writer for 41 years, I needed a break from the daily demands and deadlines of the newspaper business. So last June I retired from the Lexington Herald-Leader after covering approximately 4,000 high school sports events in my career. Now, eight months later, I’m rested and ready for a part-time return to the game. To reintroduce myself: I was born in Pikeville, grew up in Bardstown, graduated from the University of Kentucky, worked at newspapers in Eustis, Fla., Lake City, Fla., Henderson, Ky., and Evansville, Ind., before coming to Lexington in 1980. Email me at mfields@khsaa.org

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